A beginner's guide to Combat

In this short guide I'll be explaining one of the basic fundamentals of Scrolls - combat!

The Idols

In Scrolls, your ultimate goal is to destroy three of your opponent's idols. The first player to destroy any three of the five idols the opponent control will win the game - with a very good way of doing so being through units attacking during combat.

The basics of a unit

On the scroll of all units, you'll see one of these - the unit value display on which the attack, countdown, and health value of a unit can be found. The sword represents attack, the hourglass figure represents countdown, and the heart shape represents the health of the unit. The countdown value displayed on the scroll is considered the base countdown value - after a unit has attacked, its countdown will return to this value. A unit count down 1 at the beginning of your turn.

The basics of combat

Combat is put simply a phase that occurs right after you press the end turn button, and ends when the turn switches to your opponent. During the combat phase, all of your units that had a Countdown of 0 prior to entering combat will make an "attack."

Take a close look at the picture to the right. A Ragged Wolf has been played by the player, and when you hover over or click on it you'll see that it has countdown 0, meaning that it will attack when you end your turn. Additionally, a row of tiles on your opponent's side of the board have been highlighted - the attack path.

When combat begins, and the Ragged Wolf will move upon its attack path in order to attack the first most unit on said row or simply attack the Idol if there are no units blocking its attack path. Units that have the "Ranged attack"-trait have an attack pathlike the Ragged Wolf even if they do not move onto the opponent's side of the board in order to attack, as they instead fire a projectile which moves onto the opponent's side of the board.

Attacking and being attacked

If the attacking unit attacks an idol, the idol will be dealt damage equal to the attack value of the attacking unit. Damage decreases health, so an Idol starts with 10 health attacked by a Ragged Wolf will have its health decreased by 1 - as shown by the red number that will briefly appear. When the Idol's health value reaches 0 Health, it is destroyed and you're one step closer to winning.

But if there's a unit in the way of the attack path of the attacking unit, then the attacking unit will instead deal damage to the attacked unit's health - decreasing its health. When a unit's health is 0, it is destroyed just like an Idol. The attacked unit will not attack back, so the attacking unit will take no damage.

Just remember that your opponent can attack you during their turn if they have any units with 0 countdown!

Final words

These are just the very basics of combat and what happens when units attack. There are many special rules and exceptions such as units that don't attack in a path, units that don't count down at the beginning of your turn, damage not being taken as you might except, and more. Always carefully read the scrolls of units that you want to play, are about to attack, or that are going to be attacked to make sure you know what will happen as you end your turn.

That concludes this beginner's guide to the combat in Scrolls, please check out the other beginner articles if there's anything else you're wondering about.